In Ramallah market, Max Blumenthal shows the fruits of occupation

In ten days, an important book about the conflict will be published, Max Blumenthal’s Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel. The book is important because it will change the paradigm of Israel inside liberal American opinion, by demonstrating how occupation and ethnocracy have transformed the Israel of so many Americans’ dreams into an intolerant, tough, and often racist society. Blumenthal performs this shift by marshaling facts about a highly distressing reality inside the occupation and in Israel itself. And because we see that change as so vital to American awareness and policy-making, I’m going to be getting Blumenthal’s ideas out in weeks to come.

Last week I interviewed him inside the Ramallah fruit and vegetable market. It’s 5 minutes, above. Blumenthal explains that almost all of the fruits and vegetables in the market are from Israeli farms, especially in the Jordan Valley, on expropriated land.
He describes the ways that the Palestinian agricultural sector has been almost completely destroyed, by occupation and by the Oslo process, which kept Palestinians from developing an independent economic base.
And he says that one of the best ways to resist occupation is by generating your own economy and boycotting. Palestinians have been unable to do this. Gaza and the West Bank are treated as captive markets.

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Also, depriving the Palestinians of water is part of the game plan that Max so eloquently described. Israel wrecked the Palestinian farming industry for obvious reasons. What Isreal has not yet stolen, the collaborators are handing it over to it on a silver platter. That’s what Oslo was all about and this is what the current negotiations are attempting to further.

Of course you do. You are among the Jews who are involved in a generations’ long destruction of Palestine and mass murder of its people. It would benefit your scheme if all the world’s Jews went along with your criminality, but here are some who decided to atone for the evil of zionism by trying to highlight this particularly vile crime.

I’m not involved in any kind of “mass murder” Maybe you’re confusing Israel with Syria.
In general Israel is a relatively peaceful and safe country. I’m sure Phil and Max will agree on that.
My comment was a reaction to Jews publicly desecrating the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

jon, perhaps it is a form of atonement, bring truth. a form of redemption for theft and oppression perpetrated by a state in their name. that’s not a complex idea. your idea of desecration is anothers redemption, anothers purification. tikkun olam, repairing the world. you should try it. instead you attempt to spread guilt and chastize others for honest work. maybe it’s you who should be ashamed.

In general Israel is a relatively peaceful and safe country. I’m sure Phil and Max will agree on that.

you’re hiding behind a cloak of normality. this ‘relative peace’ is a mask disguising the crimes, theft, pain, oppression, racism that runs thru the society you defend.

You are part of this racist polity that has been murdering Palestinians for generations. If you’re not actively fighting for the destruction of the zionist state and its replacement with one in which all people in that land have equal rights, vote and power, then you have blood on your hands. And it’s not a safe place for non-Jews, who suffer oppression, denial of rights, assault and murder on a regular if not daily basis.

And there is nothing they did which desacrated the holiday. Indeed, they demonstrated, by their actions, their morality far more than someone who sat in a synagogue all day would.

>> In general Israel is a relatively peaceful and safe country. I’m sure Phil and Max will agree on that.

But it’s still an oppressive and supremacist state. I have great doubt that you’ll agree with that.

>> My comment was a reaction to Jews publicly desecrating the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

Yom Kippur: [A]lso known as Day of Atonement, is the holiest day of the year for the Jewish people. Its central themes are atonement and repentance.

Jews “desecrated” a “holy day” by actively supporting justice and morality. You “respected” a “holy day” by supporting injustice and immorality. Bless them for their “desecration”. You may be a “better Jew”, but they are better human beings.

For rich, apathetic jews living in the capitol who have latent or subconscious anti-Palestinianism waiting to come out, or for anyone else who doesn’t give a damn about the plight of the people living in their country at the hands of your army and society.

Palestine certainly isn’t peaceful or safe for Palestinians, especially when it comes down to what the jewish population does, as you well know.

yeah, we get your point. like i said earlier you’re hiding behind a cloak of normality. this ‘relative peace’ is a mask disguising the crimes, theft, pain, oppression, racism that runs thru the society you defend.

let’s all celebrate jon’s point that a woman can get brutally raped, her children stolen away, her husband imprisoned, their land stolen , their house bulldozed, their livelihood ripped away…but hey, jons point is that the violence didn’t kill her!

“A 52-year-old man, Eli Gur and his two children, Yahav, aged five and Eden, aged three, plummeted to their death from a residential building in north Tel Aviv Wednesday afternoon.

According to the preliminary investigation, the man, a resident of Bat Hefer, arrived with his two children to a building on Eliyahu Berlin St. in northern Tel Aviv, went up to the 11th floor roof, threw his children off, and then jumped himself.

The man picked up the children from the family home in Bat Hefer, took the children and told his wife, Ronit, from whom he was separated, that he was going to murder them. ”

and

“In September, Gur’s wife had taken out a restraining order against him in the aftermath of two separate incidents. The first incident involved a shoe that he apparently threw at her – a case that was closed because no damage was caused. The second involved death threats, for which Gur was to be tried in December.

The police investigation revealed that Gur reached his family’s home in Bat Hefer at roughly 3:00 P.M. on Tuesday. According to his wife, Gur said that he intended to kill the children, before he beat her unconscious. Three minutes later, when she came to, the children and their father were gone. She then called the police. ”

jon, you’re normalizing the injustice. whether you condone rape or theft is not the point. you’re representing a state that condones ethnic cleansing, condones it day in and day out w/a constant thrust towards expansion, by setting yourself up as pure heart or pure intentioned. meanwhile placing yourself above others by entering this thread w/your condescending yom kipper statement and saying their actions were ‘ disgaceful’.

meanwhile you’re completely ignoring every comment about interpretation of redemption/atonement and redirecting diverting towards your point, which is their disgrace, your innocents and ‘probability of meeting a violent death in Israel is extremely low’.

iow, you’re not listening. and btw, this thread is not about your point. it’s about others pts too. you think you can be the judge of what yom kippur means , you can’t. you think you can be the judge of what someone elses sense of atonement is, you can’t.

you’re deliberately threadjacking the topic of the article by dragging your judgement in here and then whining about how were not following your point.

get over yourself. you stepped in it, you have no right, moral or otherwise, to bemoan or insult max or phil’s choice of how they spend yom kippur. and what’s this?:

Annie,
I think that I made a legitimate point. I wasn’t “threadjacking” any more than other posters do regularly.
In any case, after this one, I won’t return to this thread.
I oppose the occupation and its injustices as much as anyone else, on both moral and political grounds. I’m convinced that the way to end it is through the two state solution.
My comment as to Israel being relatively safe:
The homicide rate in Israel in 2011 was 2.0 (per 100,00).
In the US: 4.7
source:http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.html

I oppose the occupation and its injustices as much as anyone else, on both moral and political grounds.

Yeah, sure, which is why your first comment about two Jews discussing the economic strangulation of the West Bank by Israel was to criticize them for doing it on Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. Nothing to atone for there, right? You really don’t appose the occupation. You hardly ever do here. You spend most of your time here changing the subject, and/or talking about Jewish suffering. I just skimmed over your last 50 comments here. Not a one of them criticized any of the daily atrocities and indignities of the Occupation enumerated here.

“I oppose the occupation and its injustices as much as anyone else, on both moral and political grounds. I’m convinced that the way to end it is through the two state solution.”

Which two-state solution is that? The one where all of the israelis pick up and move west of the 1967 line and leave the Palestinians to do everything any other state can do (including, e.g., obtain nuclear weapons to protect against the israelis), or the one where the israelis steal more of Palestine (in exchange for worthless desert) and continue to oppress the people inhumanely like they are with Gaza, with the Palestinians able to do nothing but put up with the israeli terror?

The homicide rate in Israel in 2011 was 2.0 (per 100,00).
In the US: 4.7
source:
link to unodc.org

Israeli state commissions and UN fact finding missions have both reported that Israeli authorities routinely close-out reports of Palestinian deaths without ever conducting any investigations. Now you want us to compare the number of homicides that Israel reports to the UN?

In my experience, most Palestinians (not the jihadis) respect the Jewish faith, a respect based in the teachings of Islam. If they see Jews honoring Jewish customs – their respect for them increases.
Two Jews traipsing through the market on Yom Kippur,disrespecting the holy day , taping a video…is not something that earns respect. I’m sure that they could have done the video a day earlier or a day later.

Two Jews traipsing through the market on Yom Kippur,disrespecting the holy day , taping a video…is not something that earns respect.

If they really wanted to reenact the glory days of the Second Commonwealth all of the men would go out on Yom Kippur and watch the daughters of Jerusalem dancing in the vineyards. Or are you that ignorant of Jewish customs and history? See the Mishnah Text and Translation for Ta’anit 4:8 http://www.ou.org/pdf/5763/luach0703.pdf

What do you think Palestinians respect more in Jews: exposing the injustices perpetrated by the “Jewish” State, or observing Jewish religious rituals? I know it’s not an either/or proposition, but allow me to posit that the former concern outweighs the latter to such an extent as to make the latter practically irrelevant in this context.

I would also posit that Max and Phil’s activities on Yom Kippur were far more in the spirit of Jewish tradition (see e.g. Isaiah 1:10-17) than those who spend the day fasting and praying and “immersing themselves [in purifying waters] while grasping an abomination”.

Shmuel, as you say, it’s not either/ or. Put it this way: assuming that Phil and Max’s Palestinian friends respect them for their anti zionist stand , they would respect them by a few degrees more if they would respect.

I would also add that any positive connotations that Jewish holidays may have had for Muslim Palestinians in the OT have probably been soured by the additional restrictions and hardships imposed on them on such days.

More generally speaking, how much respect for Jews and Judaism can one expect from Palestinians who have suffered so much at the hands of Jews and in the name of Judaism, and whose experience of Jews is generally limited to soldiers and settlers (many of whom show the outward signs of religious observance)?

The kind of generosity of spirit you evoke, to the extent that it exists (and I have encountered it too), is nothing short of remarkable.

So, let’s see, money comes IN to Palestine from EU (and maybe others), GOES OUT to Israel, and Israel can tighten the screws on PA anytime by closing off food supply, stopping money transfers, etc. So, let’s see, if EU goes ahead with its mini-mini-boycott on settlements and Israel retaliates, what’s next? Israel has already (as I recall) blown up projects (water projects, sewage treatment, solar electricity?) funded by EU countries and no squack was made. We live in a funny world.

I know you think you hear Israel’s death-rattle, but I live here and I see a surprisingly resilient, optimistic people who love life. They seem to take great pleasure in the outdoors, barbeques and doting on their children.

Everytime you drink a glass of water or take a shower, remember that half that water is stolen water and as such, it makes you a thief. Everytime you eat a salad, remember that there’s a good chance the vegetables in it came from the occupied West Bank, and as such, it makes you a thief. Everytime you pay taxes, remember that part of your taxes are subsidizing the living quarters of squatters on the West Bank, paying for the paving of the exclusive roads, the providing of security and electricity to them and encouraging further settlements that will steal more land from the Palestinians, and as such, it makes you a thief.

What kind of Government encourages its citizens to break a convention that was adopted in order to protect them from the consequences of occupying another people? What kind of Government sells its citizens land in territory that doesn’t belong to the state?

Tell us where you live, Walid, so we can begin an examination into what an Honest John you are.

Why? I myself have pointed out that Zionist colonial societies (Montefiore and Hebrew Union Agricultural Society) partnered in get rich quick and Ponzi schemes, including the ones in Arkansas and Kansas that captialized on the Native American Genocide/Homestead Act.

Zionists are fond of pretending that they are following the example of the USA. But we’ve accepted international norms that required us to grant the Native Americans citizenship and civil rights, complete freedom of movement and choice of residence, compensation, and other legal and judicial remedies. Zionists never seem to incorporate any of that last part into their hasbara talking points. It’s the 21st century and Israel hasn’t even caught up to the ethics of the Wilson era in the US.

“Tell us where you live, Walid, so we can begin an examination into what an Honest John you are.”

Don’t waste time drumming up sins of where I live to get into comparables to prove that Israel is not alone in its evil ways. Simply refute what said about Israel’s thievery in matters of water, land and the enjoyment of the fruit of the land that rightfully belong to the Palestinians. I don’t need you to criticize the countries where I live, I can do it myself and I often do.

Following the 1967 war, Israel conducted a census in East Jerusalem and granted permanent Israeli residency to those Arab Jerusalemites present at the time of the census. Those not present lost the right to reside in Jerusalem. Jerusalem Palestinians are permitted to apply for Israeli citizenship, provided they meet the requirements for naturalization—such as swearing allegiance to Israel and renouncing all other citizenships—which most of them refuse to do. At the end of 2005, 93% of the Arab population of East Jerusalem had permanent residency and 5% had Israeli citizenship.

I see you are still not going to answer my question. I’d suggest you drop the subject before you embarrass yourself any further than you already have.

The answer to your question is no. They were merely born in the colonies. None of my great-grandparents were stupid enough to stay around for the requisite fives years after they realized what was going on. I’ve pointed out in the past that they taught their children that political Zionism was a racket or scam.

By the way, the Jewish colonists in Kansas were late arrivals and could only colonize land that no one else, including the Indians, had ever tried to inhabit or wanted. The only way that you can make it arable enough today is through unsustainable methods like over-pumping the Ogallala aquifer.

There was plenty of land like that which the Indians had readily ceded to the US government in exchange for guarantees regarding the territory that they actually did inhabit or need for their hunting ground. See Report To The President By The Indian Peace Commission, January 7, 1868 in that regard. It makes for interesting reading, since it notes the good will of the Indians and the failures of the US government, missionary societies, and benevolent associations who had manifestly violated the treaties and victimized the Indians “by force or any fraud” imaginable. http://eweb.furman.edu/~benson/docs/peace.htm

Now could you tell us why, unlike the USA, Israel hasn’t responded to reports like that by granting its Palestinian “wards” self-determination, citizenship, constitutional guarantees of full legal equality and non-discrimination, compensation for claims, and inclusion in periodic UN treaty body reports on treatment of minorities? I’m just curious, because this is not an issue where your hasbara really shines.

Because Israel hasn’t found suitable peace partners to conclude a deal on Palestinian Statehood yet.

The UN Security Council ordered Israel to drop that belligerent claim along with all the others in 1967. The fundamental human rights we are talking about are considered inalienable by all civilized peoples. The international community also agrees that armed struggle is a legal recourse that is available whenever those rights are systematically violated.

Because Israel hasn’t found suitable peace partners to conclude a deal on Palestinian Statehood yet.

I am amazed that someone would be so tone deaf as to dig that old trope from the grave and try to revive it.

Tzipi Livni said it was Abbas that was the one waiting for a partner for peace. Of course, the claim that Israel needs one to abide by international law and the GCs is like a rapidly claiming that he can’t stop assaulting women until he finds a girlfriend that understands him.

OK, Obsidian, you want to get into the despicable living conditions in Lebanon’s Palestinian camps or to what the Europeans did to the Amerindians? I’ve already covered these aberrations and by far, neither of these events match what the Palestinians have endured at the hands of the Zionists.

“see what, if any,thing free market forces have to do with the destruction of the Palestinian agricultural sector. ”

Free market forces are one thing, but putting farmers out of business by turning off the water to their crops, or holding up their produce that’s in unrefrigerated trucks at checkpoints or border crossings for severral days under the scorching sun have nothing to do with free market economics, it has to do with a big bully being vicious to the little defenseless guy.

I watched it twice to make sure I had seen and heard correctly. Walking through a peaceful-looking market, the stalls over-flowing with delicious-looking vegetables and fruit, and complaining that it’s “cheaper and better quality” (at 1:12). Weird.

I had to read your clueless comment twice to make sure I had read it correctly. Here in the US we’ve had a law since the 1890s which says that “Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or
conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several
States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal.”

Why wouldn’t an economic agreement that 1) allows Israelis to drive competitors out of business; 2) grow crops on stolen Palestinian land; with 3) higher allocations of water that is stolen from the Palestinians by Mekorot be considered an illegal and anti-competitive combination?

I agree. You seldom encounter a Jewish person who hasn’t heard anything about enrichment through government-franchised monopolies.

For example, Mark Twain said: “Buy land, they’re not making it anymore.” That’s sound advice, but if the IDF declares your Palestinian-owned agricultural land “a closed military zone” or simply expropriates from you altogether and then allows the WZO Settlement Division to give it to illegal settlers, how can you produce and deliver cheaper crops to the markets in Israel than those Israeli settlers? How do you do business in the agricultural sector when both your land and your water are stolen and given to others by the government?

See Document confirms World Zionist Organization allocates land to settlers in Jordan valley: Government coordinator in the territories confirms: Settlers farming over a thousand acres of lands belonging to absentee owners in Jordan Valley. http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.545856

With Israel’s past history of poisoning Palestinian water wells and its never-ending experimentation and talk of wanting to sterilize the Palestinians, I’d watch what food I’m buying from Israel. There has to be something or other nefarious in these delicious-looking veggies and fruit Israelis are bringing to Palestinian markets. They steal their land, deprive them of water, imprison their children and menfolk, but they provide them with first grade produce; something is wrong in this picture.

Nothing weird about it, to anyone who’s not a brain dead zio. The complaint is that the war on the Palestinians people by you zionists is such that after you’ve stolen their land, stolen their water, restricted their movements and destroyed their economy such that Palestinian farmer have been prevented from you people from producing the fruits and vegetables that are for sale there, and not the squatter food. Get it now? The zio fruits and vegetables are “cheaper” and “better quality” because the evil acts of the zios has destroyed Palestinian agricultural sector. Most likely by design to 1) retard the effects of BDS and 2) establish the zio agriculture as a parasite on the Palestinian economy, steadily draining it of money that should be going to Palestinian farmers.

There’s a long history of accusing Jews of poisoning wells. See under: “medieval blood libel”.
As to “never -ending experimentation and talk of wanting to sterilize the Palestinians” – show me ONE example, let alone “never ending”.

There’s a long history of accusing Jews of poisoning wells. See under: “medieval blood libel”.

There is also a long very well documented history provided by the UN and NGOs of Zionists stealing, contaminating, or destroying Palestinian water supplies and storage cisterns – and that’s not a case of libel.

jon s, maybe a Palestinian seller accustomed to living under the boots of an occupying force got spooked by 2 Jews with a camera snooping around the market and asking questions. It’s not normal for a Palestinian to speak so highly of something Israeli.

Christian Peace Maker Team member Art Gish used to come back from the conflict and talk about this “systematic and deliberate” reduction of the Palestinian’s ability to farm their own lands and grow their own food for the last several decades. Words and actions are great but getting these images out is so important as well as Max’s clear explanations of what has been taking place. “systematic and deliberate” Great work Max and Phil

Yes, spreading the images and news is important, so that activists can… do what?

All these images, such good fuel for the Movement to… do what?
To silently commiserate, that’s what. Of course, that is no movement, and that is no activism.

Did MLK and Malcolm X send around unhappy pictures of oppression? Was that the civil rights movement? No, they got in front of TV cameras and demanded liberation. Bluntly. They led marches, and very public debates, for Black liberation.

Now it’s September 2013. Late September. Not even one campus has any visible boycott or divestment campaign against Israel.

What a bloody unfathomable shame. 11 years of divestment conferences, divestment “strategizing”, and not one public campus campaign demanding the slightest action against Israel.

Meanwhile a furious campaign to divest from fossil fuels is taking campuses by storm. “Progressives” are rushing to join any abstract cause that has no Arabs in it. The whiter the faces in that movement, the more attractive “progressives” find it.

Yet the elephant on the coffee table is the ongoing genocide against the Arab world. That is the paramount human rights issue of today, together with the multi-million-person death toll in Africa caused by 60 years of genocidal post-colonial colonialism.

Do “progressives” imagine they are successfully hiding their revulsion at the idea of defending Arabs from heavily-armed European colonists? They are not hiding it from anyone. Shame.

Before fossil fuels, the campus “progressives” were outraged at Coke. Before Coke, they were outraged at Nike. Before Nike, they were livid over baby formula.

But the actual life and death of millions in the Arab world today?
Don’t look for “progressives” to defend them. Hell no. Those “progressives” are racist to the bone. They will never lift a finger to boycott Israel or stop the ongoing wars on Arabs. Never, until it becomes cool and fashionable.

At most, a few of them might look at your pictures of Palestine, stifle a sniffle, and snort down another pint of diet carrot juice.

If Arab life is worth anything, to anyone on campus, let us see proof of that — like a boycott campaign to abolish the apartheid state of Israel. Yes, on your campus.

“At most, a few of them might look at your pictures of Palestine, stifle a sniffle, and snort down another pint of diet carrot juice. ”

At best, a good part of the Arab collectivity isn’t deeply interested in Palestine or into any boycotting on its behalf either. At worst, some Arab states beside Egypt and Jordan are already normalizing relations with Israel despite what it’s doing to the Palestinians. If the Arabs aren’t backing them, how are the Palestinians or the campus progressives expected to succeed?

True! Since Palestinains are pretty tightly tied down in Palestine, more importance is attached to U.S. campus boycott movements.

They can instantly reach the news media. Since Arab students do care about Palestine, largely, they are going to lead that movement to boycott Israel. No one else cares to do it.

The question is when. Now is better, while the semester is young. After 11 years of “strategizing” and “building bridges” and “educating”, finally somebody has to set the precedent of demanding boycott, on a campus.

I mean the precedent of marching into a student government and demanding a resolution that urges a boycott against all Israeli products, to the maximum extent allowd by law.

Until that precedent is set, Israel will just keep bombing and shooting its way across the Arab world like a hot knife through butter.

After the boycott demands start spreading, though, there will be no stopping them. Racism is ugly, and students ought to be proud to boycott it.

@ Walid
How much protest can the average Arab do in those Arab tyrant clan regimes? Poll after poll have each long revealed that the Arab Street totally supports the Palestinian cause. That’s the reason Israel has never been asked to join any US-led “willing coalition” to attack any Arab country that is overt enemy of Israel. Any inclusion of Israel, every Arab tyrant/monarch knows, would result in their citizens rebelling in the streets.

Citizen, there’s no denying in what you said about the tyrant regimes but even they never objected to any demonstration in favour of the Palestinians. They may not let the people demonstrate against the regime, but that’s all the tyrants care to defend. The Arab street supports the Palestinian cause in the same way almost all Jews support Israel; it’s a moral obligation to do so but ask the Arab street to start boycotting products like Intel, L’Oreal, Estee Lauder and a hundred other products or to join in boycotting artists that play in Israel to help the Palestinian cause and see how quickly they get disinterested. At least the Jews send a cheque to their favourite cause but the Arabs send only sympathies. If the Arab street wasn’t indifferent, their leaders wouldn’t be so cordial towards Israel to force it to end its brutal occupation. In Lebanon, one concert producer is suing the local chapter of BDS for loss of income after having provoked the cancellation of a concert that was coming to perform straight from a gig in TA.

How many denizens of the Arab Street can afford the products you name? Although the tyrant Arab regimes do not report the poverty of a very substantial number of its citizens, it’s still common knowledge: http://archive.arabstates.undp.org/subpage.php?spid=8
The Arab states import an awful lot of food; most of the Arab Street spends a lot of time getting government fuel and food subsidies; they won’t bite the hand that feeds them.

@jon s Reading the article you linked, Blaine’s actions got info into the Ann Arbor News that almost certainly would not have been there otherwise, particularly in 2006.

Suarez agrees with Coleman’s claim that within the occupied territories, the situation is very similar to apartheid. He agrees that most Americans are not getting the real story of what is going on in the occupied territories.

and,

“This City Council is directly responsible for the murder of 4,000 Palestinians,” he said, during his call to me. “That’s why we have been demanding that Ann Arbor divest from the racist violent state of Israel for years and years. Why is it so impossible for City Council to even have a public hearing on divestment?”

You can argue about the “This City Council is directly responsible for the murder of 4,000 Palestinians ” part, but to get agreement by a city councilman that “the situation is very much like apartheid” coupled with the public announcement that there is an effort to “have a public hearing on divestment” into an article seems like pretty effective protest messaging.

Especially since the article mentioned “quiet meetings” as the alternative.

Max mentioned the Paris Protocol that came a few months after the Oslo; from +972 Mag a couple of days back:

Twenty years ago this week Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat signed the historic Oslo Accords. A few months later, in the spring of 1994, the Paris Protocol – the blueprint that would define the economic relationship between the Palestinians and Israelis for the next two decades – was signed.

Continued violence and events such as the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin ensured that the conditions for a just peace between the two peoples would worsen over the next two decades. Despite the above, the power imbalance that gives Israel the vast majority of control over the Palestinian people and economy, and the intention that the protocol was only supposed to be valid for five years, the Paris Protocol remains central to the two peoples’ shared economic system. It’s a system that places the Palestinians almost entirely under the economic control of Israeli policy.

Israelis and Palestinians both use the shekel, but the difference in their economies is enormous. Israel’s per capita GDP is about $32,600, while Palestine’s is listed as $2,900. The Palestinian economy is small and relies almost entirely on Israel. About 72 percent of imports to Palestine come from Israel and about 90 percent of Palestinian exports wind up inside Israel.

In addition, the protocol ties the value added tax (VAT), a vital source of revenue for the PA, to Israel’s VAT. When Israel raises its VAT as it did, to 18 percent in June of this year, the PA must as well. The PA VAT sits at 16 percent. The agreement also led to the establishment of a Palestinian Finance Ministry and Central Bureau of Statistics. Still, Israel controls all ports of entry to Palestinian markets and population centers and collects the majority of import taxes on goods heading there, leaving Israel responsible for a great deal of PA government revenue. It’s a responsibility they don’t always follow through on.

One of the central components of the agreement stipulated that workers and goods would be able to flow throughout Israel and the occupied territories, but the flow of labor and goods significantly diminished in the fallout of the Second Intifada, before which about 110,000 Palestinians worked in Israel and Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. Today the number of Palestinians with Israeli work permits hovers around 35-40,000.

Indeed, a report from the UN’s conference on Trade and Development notes that restrictions on movement have contributed to the Palestinian trade deficit, which grew from 44 to 47 percent of GDP in 2012.

The report also notes that the building of the separation barrier, which began in 2003 – another measure in the wake of the Second Intifada – has led to $1 billion in losses to Palestinians in Jerusalem with $200 million added to that number each year. Commercial trade between Israelis and Palestinians was valued at $20 billion this year.

A recent International Monetary Fund report forecasts a dim outlook for the Palestinian economy. Two years ago the growth forecast for 2013 was 12 percent; now that number is set at 4.5 percent. About a quarter of Palestinians live below the poverty line. Meanwhile, a look at the Israeli side of things doesn’t reveal much better news: the Israeli poverty rate sits at 21 percent and further austerity measures are in the works.

As the occupation continues and as economic outlooks worsen for most people in Israel and Palestine, the economies of the two peoples remain intertwined. Whether the current round of negotiations can bring about a just solution – economic and otherwise – for both Israelis and Palestinians is yet to be seen. What is certain is that the Oslo process didn’t achieve it.

Wasn’t (isn’t) there a Palestinian boycott of settlement products in WB shops? What happened to that effort? It may be a matter of something or nothing given the complete destruction of the WB economy. Just curious.

Aside, this is yet another example that Israel is an intrinsically Occupation-dependent economy. There is no separation between Israel “proper” and the settlements.

This is probably (heh) a Hostage question, but of all the “stroke-of-the-pen” (a simplistic notion to be sure) actions the PA could take to resist the Occupation, isn’t abrogating the Paris Protocols at the top of the list?

Surely they have local banks in place, and a tax collection system could be put in place relatively quickly. How would Israel react, with force everywhere, all the time, to collect taxes?

The Iranians tried (or perhaps did, can’t remember) to decouple their oil economy from the dollar. That, iirc, ended up being a source of a lot of their economic woes. But for the Palestinians/Palestine, there’s woes and then there’s woes.

If they abrogate those protocols, they will be excoriated as people who don’t keep contracts, don’t hold to their word, aren’t civilized, can’t be trusted, and are not a serious partner for peace.

Oh wait, they already are. So what does the Palestinian Authority have to lose?

Power, privilege, wealth, prestige, relative freedom (to travel, etc.), business contacts and deals, their identities (as national leaders recognized on the world stage, etc.), and possibly their lives.

So far Israel has them pretty well sewn up. I wonder what it would take to finally shake this formula.

But seriously, this recent Mustafa Barghouti petition circulation may have some effect in “shaking ‘them’ up.” If he does get 1M sigs then that becomes a new/supplemental force/dynamic of discontent and “desirement” in PA/PLO politics.

The larger question to me is whether, or better, how much more Palestinians can personally withstand (re: suffer) to resist Israel’s calculated and potentially inexorable assimilation of their everything. I don’t know. You are a better person to assess that.

This is probably (heh) a Hostage question, but of all the “stroke-of-the-pen” (a simplistic notion to be sure) actions the PA could take to resist the Occupation, isn’t abrogating the Paris Protocols at the top of the list?

First of all, we are talking about an unenforceable lapsed agreement. Secondly the PA is no more. Following the Palestinians’ upgraded status at the United Nations, Abbas signed a presidential decree redesignating all of the government offices as the “State of Palestine”.

Article X of the Declaration of Principles underlying the Oslo Accords established a joint Israeli-Palestinian Liason Committee to deal with any disputes over those terms or any subsequent agreements pertaining to the five year interim period that began on the day the initial agreement was signed and entered into force.
* http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/dop.html

Thanks Hostage. Just when I thought that the GoP/PA/PLO was treaty-constrained from moving toward independence on some fronts within their control, you point out they’re not constrained by treaty.

My question was intended to be more one of the mechanics of withdrawal rather than of intention or will to be independent at some (or any) level. It sure seems like it is only a question of intention and/or will.

I’m sure they feel they’re constrained by something, it’s just not a treaty. Perhaps greed. Perhaps the “fragility” of the “negotiations.” Oh well, SOS.

The fruits and vegetables in Palestinian markets are not from the Jordan Valley. 99% of Jordan Valley settlement agriculture is exported exactly because they are growing produce that is out of season in the EU, they don’t throw away their profits to sell wholesale to Palestinians in Ramallah and Nablus. You may find boxes from Jordan Valley settlements, but that is because they are super cheap and there is no Palestinian box producer.

I didn’t mention Paris protocols. What I said was, the chances of these cheap Israeli fruits and vegetables being from settlements in the Jordan valley is almost nil. I’ve been working in the Jordan valley for over 2 years and know the trade the settlements do there rather well and believe me, you’d be hard pressed to find them in a Palestinian market. If they were, best odds are that a Palestinian laborer was given them by the settler (as work compensation) and the laborer decided to sell them for himself

“The fruits and vegetables in Palestinian markets are not from the Jordan Valley. 99% of Jordan Valley settlement agriculture is exported exactly because they are growing produce that is out of season in the EU, they don’t throw away their profits to sell wholesale to Palestinians in Ramallah and Nablus.”ravenxpac

“Last week I interviewed him inside the Ramallah fruit and vegetable market. It’s 5 minutes, above. Blumenthal explains that almost all of the fruits and vegetables in the market are from Israeli farms, especially in the Jordan Valley, on expropriated land.”

“they don’t throw away their profits to sell wholesale to Palestinians in Ramallah and Nablus”

How do they sell to the EU, is it retail? I’d take Max’ word for it. He did mention that the cabbage was from Jenin. Anyway, those hapless Palestinian farmers don’t have enough water to grow such crops. Max and Phil were surely not guessing where the produce was coming from and had it been from Palestinian plantations, the Palestinians would have proudly said so.

If Palestinians in the market tell you it is from Jenin, then it is usually from the Galilee where the overwhelming majority of Israeli produce in Palestinian markets comes from. I have lived next to that market for 4 years, please tell me more about how Max’s one conversation with a vendor is better than that. They tell foreigners what they want to hear (Jenin), they tell Palestinians what they want to hear (Galilee). They absolutely do not say they are Palestinian when in fact they are, perhaps you should come to the market with me, and I can point out for you which are which.

How do settlers sell to the EU, yes retail, but as any person should know, produce in the EU is exponentially more expensive than produce in Ramallah, hence selling higher quality fruits and vegetables to the EU in their offseasons is very profitable and they would not sacrifice their profits to sell them to the Palestinian market since it is in season for them.

We have export markets for the agricultural products grown in Kansas too. You’re not taking into account the fact that this is a perishable commodities market we are talking about in this case. You frequently have to sell surplus items locally due to competition for export orders from growers in other countries. Some products inevitably end up being sold locally because they ripen even when stored, or awaiting shipment.

I’ve never met a farmer yet who was lucky enough to always sell his or her crops for the top market price.

P.S. Here’s a link which indicates that only 66 percent of the “Made in Israel” produce from the occupied territories is sold to the European market. It also contains reports from an Israeli farmers association about continuous growth in the market to Gaza since 2009. So it’s unlikely that Israeli farmers are foregoing the captive Palestinian market. http://whoprofits.org/sites/default/files/agricultural_export___flash_report_0.pdf

P.S. read what it says: “In 2010, Israel exported fruit and vegetables in the total worth of 2.1 billion USD, 66% of which were exported to the European market. Some of this produce originated from occupied territories”

P.S. read what it says: . . . Some of this produce originated from occupied territories”

You mean some of it originated in occupied territory, like the Jordan Valley? That is what we are talking about, you know?

Maybe you should actually read the report :)

Maybe you should drop the sweeping over-generalizations about selling everything produced in Europe and just be half as smart as you think you are. I’m merely pointing out that Israeli farmers can’t count on shipping everything they grow to Europe when only 66% ends up there.

You misquoted a report and stated it as fact, which it is not. I have actual shipping reports and interviews with settlers in the Jordan Valley, while you misquote opening sentences of the FIRST paragraph. So yeah, I do think I know what I am talking about, especially compared to you.

I could regurgitate the percentages from each settlement in the Jordan Valley and Dead Sea and how much they sell to the EU and the United States if you want, it is my job to document this stuff on a regular basis.

Also what you don’t know is, the Who Profits report was written at the end of 2011 (published in the middle of 2012), and I actually contributed to it. What you also don’t know is, is that in February of 2012, settlements in the Jordan Valley stopped labeling their boxes “Made in Israel,” and instead sold their produce to Tel Aviv companies to ship as Made in Israel OR they put the name of the settlement in Hebrew because they know that 99.99% of people in the world do not know that מושב תומר is a settlement in the central Jordan Valley. Lastly, since the report the amount of agricultural distributors from the Jordan Valley went from around 2 dozen to almost 500, so efficient tracking on an NGO budget is near impossible. Most of us rely on highlighting a handful of companies or tracking by settlement production.

Okay I stand corrected. I was only pointing out that Israeli farmers don’t sell all of their products to Europe (still a fact) and that Israeli farmer’s associations do report sales of products to places in the occupied territories, like Gaza (still a fact). In other words you really can’t just assume Phil and Max are wrong, which is something you’ve stated as fact. It still looks to me like you are the one who is engaging in demagoguery.

Well, it depends on which MahaneYehude1 you get on any particular day. One of them, based on his posts, appears to be from the US, to me. As for the other MahaneYehude1’s, who knows. Some of them obviously don’t speak English as a first language.

Woody: There is only one Mahane and you know he is from Israel, Zionist and love its people and own state. He is a man of peace and reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians. Mahane speaks Hebrew as first language, Arabic and not so good English, unfortunately, but considering the replies he receives, people here in MW understand him as you can see in the below comments.

No, I don’t “know.” From the ever shifting proficiency in English, I don’t believe a single word you say. I think that this account – – “MahaneYehude1” — is being used by many different people, and that every word you type here is a lie or propaganda about the Apartheid state of israel, in order to permit that state to further terrorize and oppress the Palestinians.

I understand that you two are guests in Jerusalem. You visited already the Sheikh Jarah neighborhood, the Qualandia checkpoint and now the Ramallah market. To the checkpoint you took bus no. 18, as Philip told us.

Please, let me recommend you both to take again bus 18, but this time bus 18 of Egged company, opposite King David hotel to the Jewish neighborhoods Katamonin and Kiryat Menachem so you can tell the readers about the standard of living of Jewish families, worse than any given Palestinian refugee camp.

From there, you can take another bus and visit several Jewish families that lost members of their families in several terror attacks in Jerusalem so you can tell the readers that the sufferings never stop in one side of the line and doesn’t discriminate between Jewish and Palestinian families.

If it is not to much, please, take bus 32, to Pat junction, walk five minutes to the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Safafa, maybe you will meet several Palestinians that are happy to be Israeli citizens. You can tell the readers about them and why they feel so.

I know that after this long journey you maybe need to rest and eat supper. So, let me recommend you to take bus to central bus station and another to the Palestinian village of Abu Ghosh, 20 minutes from Jerusalem on the high way to Tel Aviv. This village famous for its good restaurants. You can tell the readers about your impression from the Palestinians residents of this beautiful village. Bon Apetite!!

“to the Jewish neighborhoods Katamonin and Kiryat Menachem so you can tell the readers about the standard of living of Jewish families, worse than any given Palestinian refugee camp.”

really?

from wiki:

“Kiryat Menachem and Ir Ganim are a single geographic unit with a population of about 15,000. The neighborhood’s population is quite heterogeneous, with veteran residents and new immigrants from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union.

There are various types of housing in the neighborhood, in keeping with the population’s mixture of socioeconomic levels. These include low-rise buildings and homes with gardens, mainly in Ir Ganim A and Ir Ganim B, and high-rise buildings of 4-8 stories with very small apartments throughout most of the rest of the neighborhood. Some of these buildings, particularly in Ir Ganim C and parts of Kiryat Menachem, were erected in the 1950s as temporary housing for immigrants, and are now in serious disrepair. In the 1990s urban renewal projects were carried out in these neighborhoods and some of the buildings were renovated and expanded.

Since this neighborhood is on the outskirts of Jerusalem and has a unique mixture of populations that have no easy access to the cultural and leisure activities in the city center, the Kiryat Menachem-Ir Ganim neighborhood has developed social solidarity and community institutions that make this area a pleasant place to live.”

and

“To the west, Old Katamon branches out into several neighbourhoods collectively called the “Katamonim” (plural of Katamon; officially Gonenim, lit. “Defenders”), built in the early years of the state to accommodate the large wave of new immigrants, previously living in tent camps.[12] These neighborhoods were assigned Hebrew numerals : Katamon Khet (“Katamon 8”), Katamon Tet (“Katamon 9), etc. Some of those neighborhoods have a second name. Katamon Hei (5) is also called San Simon Neighborhood,[13] a part of Katamon Het (8) and Katamon tet (9) is sometimes called San Martin Neighborhood,[14] and Katamon zayn (7) is Pat neighborhood.

Katamon Khet was built at the end of the 1950s, and Katamon Tet in the mid-1960s. The Katamonim are characterized by long apartment blocks on pillars, providing low-cost housing. Some of the buildings are still government-owned, although the Amidar housing company sold many of the apartments to the residents in the 1970s.[12] The neighborhood hosts a well-known WIZO community center called after Helena Kagan.

Prior to the Six-Day War in June 1967, the Katamonim were on the Jordanian-Israeli armistice line. Massive infrastructure improvement was financed by an urban renewal project known as “Project Renewal” over a period of two decades. Many small apartments were combined into larger ones and the outward appearance of the apartment blocks was improved.[12] Since the 1990s, many Russian and Ethiopian immigrants have been given housing there.[12]

The Jerusalem Tennis Center, founded in 1981 and dedicated in 1982 by the Jewish community of South Africa in memory of Yossi Zeituni, a tennis coach who fell in the Lebanon War, is located in the Katamonim. The center has 19 courts and a stadium with seating for 2,000 spectators.[12]”

@just: Instead of copy and paste Wikipedia texts, I invite you to be a guest in Jerusalem or any other city in Israel and realize by your self that the situation in the ground is very different from what you think about us since you are exposed to disinformation about my country that so it hard for you to see the reality as it is: a state with a lot of problems and complicated situation but still democratic, open society and tolerant for all. Bon Voyage!

“Mahane speaks Hebrew as first language, Arabic and not so good English, unfortunately, but considering the replies he receives, people here in MW understand him as you can see in the below comments.”

What and where are these “below comments”?????

PS– I believe that you are disingenuous. I wrote this awhile ago:

“just September 9, 2013 at 5:12 am with 1 replies

You certainly have loads of ” humility” MY. “I must say in advance that I am not an educated man, have bad English and bad ability to express my self like you did in your nice article. Hope you don’t care.”

Your English is quite fine– in fact, it reads perfectly American English- like. You’ve said that you are a “simple potato seller”– do you grow the potatoes that you sell in the market? Where is your farm?

@just: Please, tell me, is the I/P conflict the main issue of this web site or Mahane? Why several of you make efforts to decrease my credibility? maybe because I am a Zionist, pro-Israeli but still want peace and reconciliation with my Arabs neighbors, something that you can’t accept and it breaks your concepts about the Israelis and the Zionists? Or maybe you see that behind the term “Zionist” there is a human being exactly like you?

maybe because I am a Zionist, pro-Israeli but still want peace and reconciliation with my Arabs neighbors, something that you can’t accept and it breaks your concepts about the Israelis and the Zionists?

But you have clearly stated that’s not what you want. For there to be peace and reconciliation, you would have to accept Palestinian sovereignty, which you oppose.

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